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| Emma Stone, in Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things |
It’s strike season in Hollywood, and Last Cinema Standing stands with the Writers and Screen Actors guilds. What is at stake in this work stoppage is nothing less than the very future of an industry I care deeply about, and it is fair to say at this point that only one side seems to care if the industry even has a future.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has already said it is willing to starve writers out of their homes before it would be willing to negotiate reasonable terms. In case a producer is reading this but has somehow never seen a film or television show, that makes the AMPTP the villain. And if choking off the livelihoods of the same people who create the products they sell weren’t enough, the producers also seem willing to cut off the supply of that product to the places where it is sold. Namely, movie theaters.
So, we come to this, the seventh edition of Last Cinema Standing’s Most Anticipated Movies of the Fall, from an odd place. Since it seems the strikes most likely will continue through the holidays and studios have no actors to promote their films, those films are slowly but surely being removed from the release calendar. Though all of the films in the list below have either premiered at festivals or been given fall release dates, there is no guarantee any of them will, in fact, be released this year.
The No. 2 film on the list – Yorgos Lanthimos’ Emma Stone-starring fantasy Poor Things – was supposed to come out next week, but due to the ongoing strike, it was pushed back to December. Assuming the strike will continue through December, there is nothing to suggest the studio will not continue pushing the release. And, that is just one film.
Other films have already moved to tentative places on the 2024 calendar, such as Luca Guadagnino’s tennis drama Challengers and the Ghostbusters reboot sequel. In the middle of writing this piece, Denis Villeneuve’s highly anticipated Dune: Part Two, which had already moved multiple times and seemed always on the chopping block, was exiled from this year’s slate. None of that is to mention the films that shut down mid-production and may or may not ever return.
All film fans can do is wait and see and hope the producers come to their senses, showing some affinity for the business they run. As of now, they seem downright resentful of the fact that human beings – artists – have to be involved in the process at all or that those people would like to be paid for their work. It reminds of the line in Goodfellas when Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill talks of his friend, Jimmy, after pulling off the biggest heist in American history: “It made him sick to have to turn the money over to the guys who stole it. He’d rather whack them.” Once again, for clarification, Jimmy is the bad guy.
To transition rather inelegantly to the task at hand, one of the lesser shames of the situation is that the slate of films we are due to receive this year has the potential to be monumental, assuming all or most of them are released. The list of films that did not make my top 10 would itself make a fine top 10 in another year.
These include Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla and new films from indie stalwarts Todd Haynes (May December), Alexander Payne (The Holdovers), Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers), and John Carney (Flora and Son). There is also the return of Michael Fassbender to the big screen after a six-year break during which he has raced cars and raised a family. He will star in new films from both David Fincher and Taika Waititi.
Pedro Almodóvar is set to make his English-language debut after decades of conquering Spanish cinema with Strange Way of Life, while Michael Mann will offer Ferrari, starring the aptly named Adam Driver as automotive mogul Enzo Ferrari. Let us hope Driver has traded in whatever that Italian accent he was doing in House of Gucci for something a little less arch. Finally, Emerald Fennell, hot off a supporting acting turn in the phenomenon that is Barbie, returns with her first film since the Oscar-winning Promising Young Woman: Saltburn.
Those films alone would constitute an embarrassment of riches, and yet, here we are with 10 films that stand tall above the rest. Last Cinema Standing’s 10 Most Anticipated Movies of Fall 2023:
10. El Conde, directed by Pablo Larraín
Release date: Sept. 15
From No to Neruda to Jackie to Spencer, Larraín consistently crafts the most exciting, inventive, and visually splendid films based on the lives of real people. None of these films could rightly be considered a biopic. Rather, they are deep dives into the psyches of their subjects. With El Conde, he appears to be taking his biggest swing yet, portraying the reviled Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as an actual vampire. The conceit alone would sell tickets, but it is the anticipation of what Larraín might do with it that will get me in the theater.
9. The Bikeriders, directed by Jeff Nichols
Release date: Dec. 1
We will get to another pair of famous director-actor collaborators further down this list, but let’s take a moment to appreciate Nichols and longtime friend Michael Shannon. Nichols has never made a bad movie, and Shannon is incapable of giving a bad performance. In their five previous films together, Shannon has not always been the lead, but Nichols has always brought out something new and interesting in the performer. This story of a 1960s motorcycle club, which has been a passion project of Nichols’ for nearly a decade, would seem to promise more of the same.
8. The Zone of Interest, directed by Jonathan Glazer
Release date: Dec. 8
Sometimes a movie gets such great notices out of its festival premiere that it becomes an instant must-see. Parasite was like that after it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2019. Now comes The Zone of Interest from Glazer, which was the talk of the festival this year at Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix (traditionally considered second prize; the Palme was reserved for a film a little further up this list). This is Glazer’s first film since his beloved indie sci-fi flick Under the Skin in 2013, a fact that would have made this follow-up a curiosity anyway, but the glowing notices from France have sent my level of interest through the roof.
7. Fallen Leaves, directed by Aki Kaurismäki
Release date: TBA
I saw Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope at the Lincoln Center in 2017. I found it to be charming, idiosyncratic, and honest. I had never seen any of the filmmaker’s previous works, which I had somehow missed over the years. That changed during the early days of the pandemic lockdown, when the Criterion Channel offered up a retrospective of Kaurismäki’s films. I devoured them and began plotting how I would expose more people to these odd little fables that somehow achieve universality and transcendence. I will never miss one of this director’s films again.
6. Anatomy of a Fall, directed by Justine Triet
Release date: Oct. 13
I have not seen any of Triet’s work, but I am excited to familiarize myself with it. Her two films previous to this one are both available on the unsung hero of streaming services, Tubi, for anyone else who wants to check out Sybil or In Bed with Victoria. As for this film, it, of course, won the top prize at Cannes back in May, making Triet just the third woman to win the award in the history of the festival. Adding to the intrigue, the film stars the brilliant German performer Sandra Hüller, who was so excellent in films such as Toni Erdmann and I’m Your Man.
5. Napoleon, directed by Ridley Scott
Release date: Nov. 22
As Don’t Worry Darling star Harry Styles might say, sometimes a movie comes along that feels like “a real ‘go to the theater’ film movie.” As part of that picture’s disastrous press run (from a marketing standpoint; the movie was a big success, recall), that quote was widely mocked. But, you know what? I get it. And, movies like this are the reason why. Scott – the director of such epics as Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, as well as a half-dozen or more absolute classics of modern cinema – helms a biopic about one of the most famous men in the history of modern civilization, starring one of the finest actors we have. Mock if you like, but that’s real ‘go to the theater’ film movie type stuff.
4. Occupied City, directed by Steve McQueen
Release date: TBA
I don’t have a ton of information on what lies ahead for movies in 2024, but if I had to put money on what will be my No. 1 most anticipated film of next year, I would guess Blitz, McQueen’s upcoming film about the bombing of London during World War II. While I wait for that, I will have to tide myself over with this 4-hour, 22-minute documentary about the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam from 1940-1945. The film is written by McQuen’s wife, Bianca Stigter, and based on her book, which is an exhaustive recounting of the occupation. McQueen reportedly has a 36-hour cut of this film that covers everything featured in the book. You know what? Sign me up.
3. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, directed by Radu Jude
Release date: TBA
Jude’s previous feature, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, is one of the finest films of this young decade. The one before that, I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians, is equally invigorating in its formal daring and political ardor. Along with directors like Cristi Puiu, Cristian Mungiu, and Corneliu Porumboiu, Jude is at the forefront of the Romanian New Wave, producing the most innovative and urgent films of the movement. Anything Jude puts out into the world automatically becomes a must-see event.
2. Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Release date: Dec. 8
Perhaps I am being optimistic as I type, and once I publish, that optimism will be proven foolish. But, I am going to hope against hope that Lanthimos’ twisted, Frankenstein-style fantasy fable makes its way to movie screens this year. There was even a time when we thought we might get two new pictures from the Greek auteur this year, but let’s not be greedy. We’ll get AND when we get it. For now, we’ll just pray to the gods of cinema that this gorgeous looking film makes its Dec. 8 release date, and we get to see this amazing cast in a story that promises to be truly unique.
1. Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese
Release date: Oct. 6
It could be nothing else. It would never be anything else. How could it ever be something else? Our greatest living film director is making an epic western crime picture about the systematic murder of indigenous peoples and the theft of their money and property. It stars the finest actor of his generation – Leonardo DiCaprio – and features a supporting turn by the perhaps the finest film actor of all time – Robert De Niro. Add to that a performance by indigenous performer Lily Gladstone that by all accounts steals the picture out from under both of them.
The story of what happened to the Osage Nation is timely and relevant. The picture looks beautifully mounted, of course; this is Scorsese’s third straight collaboration with director of photography Rodrigo Prieto after Silence and The Irishman and first time working with the brilliant production designer Jack Fisk. There could be nothing bigger.
This is why movies matter. This is why theaters matter. This is why the people who write these films and star in them – as well as every single other person who works on them – matter. And, this is what the AMPTP wants to take away. First, destroy the soul of the thing, then destroy the thing itself. In this case, that “thing” is art, and these are our finest artists.
